Bowel Screening Services

What is Bowel Cancer?

Bowel cancer is a general term for cancer that begins in the large bowel. Depending on where the cancer starts, bowel cancer is sometimes called colon or rectal cancer.

Bowel cancer is one of the most common types of cancer diagnosed in the UK. Most people diagnosed with it are over the age of 60.

To detect cases of bowel cancer sooner, everyone aged 60 to 74 who is registered with a GP and lives in England is automatically sent a bowel cancer screening home test kit every 2 years.

If you're 75 or over, you can ask for a kit every 2 years by phoning the free bowel cancer screening helpline on 0800 707 60 60.

What are the Symptoms of Bowel Cancer?

The 3 main symptoms of bowel cancer are:

persistent blood in your poo – that happens for no obvious reason or is associated with a change in bowel habit
a persistent change in your bowel habit – which is usually having to poo more and your poo may also become more runny
persistent lower abdominal (tummy) pain, bloating or discomfort – that's always caused by eating and may be associated with loss of appetite or significant inintentional weight loss.

Most people with these symptoms do not have bowel cancer. Other health problems can cause similar symptoms. For example:

blood in the poo when associated with pain or soreness is more often caused by piles (haemorrhoids)
a change in bowel habit or abdominal pain is usually caused by something you've eaten
a change in bowel habit to going less often, with harder poo, is not usually caused by any serious condition – it may be worth trying laxatives before seeing a GP

These symptoms should be taken more seriously as you get older and when they persist despite simple treatments.

When to Seek Advice?

See a GP If you have any of the symptoms of bowel cancer for 3 weeks or more.

The GP may decide to:

examine your tummy and bottom to make sure you have no lumps
arrange for a simple blood test to check for iron deficiency anaemia– this can show whether there's any bleeding from your bowel that you have not been aware of
arrange for you to have a simple test in hospital to make sure there's no serious cause of your symptoms

Make sure you see a GP if your symptoms persist or keep coming back after stopping treatment, regardless of their severity or your age. You'll probably be referred to hospital.

What is the Screening Process?

You use a home test kit, called a faecal immunochemical test (FIT), to collect a small sample of poo and send it to a lab. This is checked for tiny amounts of blood.

Blood can be a sign of polyps or bowel cancer. Polyps are growths in the bowel. They are not cancer, but may turn into cancer over time.

If the test finds anything unusual, you might be asked to have further tests to confirm or rule out cancer.

For a step by step on how to complete a FIT test please follow this link:

https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/sites/default/files/fit_symptomatic_patient_leaflet_final.pdf

What treatment is Available for Bowel Cancer?

Bowel cancer can be treated using a combination of different treatments, depending on where the cancer is in your bowel and how far it has spread.

The main treatments are:

surgery – the cancerous section of bowel is removed; it's the most effective way of curing bowel cancer and in many cases is all you need
chemotherapy – where medicine is used to kill cancer cells
radiotherapy – where radiation is used to kill cancer cells
targeted therapies – a newer group of medicines that increases the effectiveness of chemotherapy and prevents the cancer spreading

As with most types of cancer, the chance of a complete cure depends on how far it's spread by the time it's diagnosed. If the cancer is confined to the bowel, surgery is usually able to completely remove it.

Keyhole or robotic surgery is being used more often, which allows surgery to be performed with less pain and a quicker recovery.

Once the screening process has been completed the appropriate treatment would be discuss with GPs and specialists.